Most of the recent attention about the Steve Jobs film that Danny Boyle is preparing to direct has, somewhat naturally, been focused on the casting choices. But the fact remains that Social Network** writer Aaron Sorkin is behind the script, and he talked a little more about the film and its focus to The Independent recently.
Talking about both David Fincher’s 2010 Facebook drama and the still-gestating movie about the Apple boss, he knows what they’re really about. “Both films are much more about the people than the technology they invented,” he says. “With The Social Network, I was interested in the psychology of the world’s most successful social networking system being invented by the world’s most anti-social guy. And in the case of Steve Jobs, it’s the relationships he had – particularly with his daughter, Lisa – that drew me to it.”
Though Jobs initially denied her paternity, the pair eventually patched things up and Sorkin was able to secure time to get her side of the story. “She didn’t participate in Walter Isaacson’s book, because her father was alive at the time, and she didn’t want to alienate either of her parents, so I was very grateful that she was willing to spend time with me,” says Sorkin. “She is the heroine of the movie.” Yet the film will still be focused on the man himself: “It’s a 181-page script, about 100 of it is that one character,” says Sorkin. It's a gig that has already been flirted with by Christian Bale (twice) and may now be handed to Michael Fassbender.
Boyle should be shooting the film next year, once the appropriate actors have been rounded up.